A campaign
warning : game bends D&D rules This game is meant for one player, but may be better suited for two or three ' Chapter 1 The heroes wake up, with no memories of anything, in a castle surrounded by snow. This is castle stormhold. They see a young man by their bedside, and he tells them that the residents of the castle found them washed up by the shore, they healed them and now they are in this castle. He then tells them that they better hurry up and go see the general for army training. Yes, they were drafted into the army. If they want to explore the castle, roll a d4 for which room they find: 1: the kitchen, where they can get a side quest to find herbs from the forest, and learn a recipe for a campfire dinner which heals 1d4+4 damage 2: the mage tower, where someone can learn two spells of their choice, 2nd level or lower, for 100gp, and can add on more to that for 50 gp each spell, a.k.a. They buy a spellbook. 3: the morgue, they can loot corpses for items off of the 1d100 sheet if they roll a 14 or higher on a d20 4: the royal chambers. They may be able to steal something worth 75 gp if they can sneak in (16 on a d20) but if they are caught sneaking in or out, they lose 3hp. ' They then have to go to the training, where they can fight animated dummies in the arena, 13 ac, 9 hp, 1d4 damage,50 xp, and after the fight, they heal back to full. There are obstacle courses, which consist of 2 vine traps 12 str or dex to pass, 3 giant spiderwebs, 2 spiders each, 10 ac 3 hp, and 2 hurdles, 14 dex. Finishing a obstacle course rewards with 100 xp if you don’t get caught on anything, -10 xp for a fail on anything, least amount 40 xp. They may also go into the forest and fight goblins, in this case same stats as dummies, but they do d6 damage. Goblins come in groups of 2-3. ' ' The only exit is large oak double doors, leading to a small outcropping of the castle. This is where scouts keep watch from and has another set of doors. This finally leads to the drawbridge, which is kept on guard all day, guard change at 10am and 10pm.to sneak to the drawbridge is 16 during the day, 14 during the night. To get down the drawbridge, a player must roll 16 or over to get it ¼ down, and 20 brings it ½ down. Once it is down, the players are free to do whatever they want. Another way to get out would be to go on an official quest, accomplished by fighting 7 groups of goblins, in which case there would be 4 normal goblins and a beefed-up one, this one with 12 ac and 10 hp. On the large goblin, they will find a piece of paper that says something like “army moving out in a fortnight, stormhold will never suspect anything” and has some army positions and numbers and stuff. If they bring this to the general, he will assign them to abolish the goblin kingdom and send them on their way with some gear and 1d8+4 hp potions and supplies like rope, torches, and other adventuring gear. There are other quests in this world than the main storyline, and tell the players that. Tell them that there is a fairly prosperous town near the castle, with lots of stuff to buy. If they go to the town, the first thing they will see on their way in is a pet shop, the hooves and tail. when they go in, they will find it sells animals like rats, mastiffs, weasels, and cats, a.k.a. Normal animals. If the animal is not priced in the book, small animals are 15 sp, medium is 90 sp, and large are 12 gp. Each person may only buy one. Other stores in town are a wizard’s shop, where he appraises magical items, the local blacksmith, who buys, sells and makes weapons/armor. Then there’s an inn, with the only restaurant in town, the rest is mostly residential, but you can add more shops if you want to. You also want to have someone come up to them and tell them about a dragon that lives in Alaventia, but make sure they know the dragon is a good guy, basically they give food and gold/jewels, for me it’s 10 baskets of apples, 10 baskets of corn, 10 cattle, 10 sheep, 10 chests of jewels, 10 chests of gold, 10 chests of other precious metals, 10 of things like bejeweled cups, and free range of any other livestock in the kingdom, in return, the dragon doesn’t eat people from Alaventia and helps them in battle/defends them from pirates and stuff, but lately, she has been sick and if she steals 3 pigs from a field, all the others will die, and all of the other animals in that town, but humans have some immunity to this disease, they will direct the heroes to the dragon’s cave, which is accessed by a cave system behind the goblin castle, so the heroes will head off there, hopefully, but we’ll get to the side quests later. So, on their way there, they are venturing through a dark forest, so of course there are going to be encounters. These have 4-6 goblins from the book, later on 5-8 and 1-4 wargs. Each encounter. Maybe give some interesting positions, like fighting across a cliff or fighting goblins on a tiered hill and then having them defend it. The point is, make it interesting. This part of the story is in a rough stage and when i finish the storyline i will come back and flesh it out. Anyway, once you get to the goblin king’s castle, you want the heroes to be at least third level, maybe fourth, you find a goblin scout party, 2 for each hero. These are the weaker goblins from army training, because they aren’t trained in battle. If the goblins aren’t defeated in three dm turns, they start to run back to the castle, and if they don’t die in two more dm turns, they make it to the castle, and warn the other goblins, so the heroes have no chance to surprise attack, if you use that mechanic, and if you don’t use that, have them have +2 armor class on the first turn because there’s no chance of surprise. Anyway, the first round is 5 wargs, plus three scout goblins and any goblins that escaped. This is like where the royals kept their hunting dogs. Once you get past them, you have to go up the walls and attack the goblin bowmen. Each bowman has a shortbow, and no other weapons. There are 8 bowmen, but they do have disadvantage at close range. After that, the king goblin’s guards 1 normal goblin, 8, weak goblins. These guys are the last part before the boss , so tell them that. Let them rest for a bit and if they ask about the rest of the goblins, tell them that they fought most of them on their way here. Once they go into the throne room, the goblin king is talking with some orcs. Two of them. The orc king runs right past them, getting out of there, but the orcs get ready for a fight. Once they get past that, they will find the goblin king in the armory, holding a copper mottled blade, a big rapier. The king goblin has 13 ac & 20 hp, he hits 2d8+3, and tell them that this is because of his awe-inspiring sword. After the battle, someone is probably going to grab the sword. If they do, tell them it changes in their hands. This sword does 2d8 damage, and transforms to fit the character’s class and personality. The sword hilt, decoration, shape, and any extra effects are decided by class, while type and metal are decided by alignment. If someone does not grab the sword, there is one like it in the armory, and tell them that they saw hundreds of gleaming weapons in the armory. This will draw them back, hopefully, and you can give them stuff like potions of health, 1d12 but only one each, this is a really “fun” thing to do and will have your characters HATING YOU FOREVER what? No, I didn’t say anything, that was just my inner character screaming at me. Sorry. Anyway, smoke bombs would be good, some vials of holy water/poison, and, a tinkerer’s vest a tinkerer’s vest is something that is basically useless but seems good. Basically, with the vest, you can create some little things, refer to the rock or mountain gnomes in the 5e book, but both creating and repairing you can do during a long rest. Anyway, so they’ve gotten to the caverns leading up to the dragon’s cave. these caves are known as the lycanthrope caverns. some of your players may know lycanthrope means werewolf. so in these caverns, there are three encounters, consisting mostly of my own werewolves, with 15 ac, and 10 hit points, with the bite action, a longsword, and a crossbow, but can also transform into a dire wolf. when the werewolf uses bite in either form, the player bitten rolls a con saving throw, 15 or higher, they may transform into a werewolf at will and retain mental clarity, 5 to 14, they may transform at will but have to attack the nearest creature, and 4 and lower, transform on full moons and attack the nearest creature. if you become a werewolf, while in wolf form, you get +2 to str, dex, and con modifiers, but can only use Bite (from handbook): Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) piercing damage. If the target is a humanoid, it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be cursed with werewolf lycanthropy (does not work like normal player stuff). Claws (also from handbook): Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (2d4 + 2) slashing damage. also, if you had rolled 15 or higher, when in wolf form, you may speak to animals and, if you rolled a natural or modded 20, you get a dire wolf companion that can fight. so you've got past the werewolves, you now have to help the dragon. at this point, the adventurers should be about 5th level, or this might be a tpk. the heroes head into the dragon's cave and they find the dragon, who tells them there is a plague being in his cave, which the heroes have to get rid of. if the heroes rummage through the dragon's hoard, they get some healing herbs, which they can eat, which makes all attacks by the plague being -1 damage, or they can throw at the plague being have disadvantage on all checks for 5 rounds. the plague being has 16 ac, and 50 hp. it has multiattack, and can attack 1d8, or 1d6+1d4 for 3 more turns if the attacked failed an ac 17 con check. if the heroes defeat it, the dragon grants them each items from his hoard, including all armor and weapons from the handbook, relatively small things that the heroes request like something that grants flight, or a spell of level 3 or lower, even for non-magic classes. or something like Flame Blade (druid level 2 spell) that's permanent. other ideas could be a creature companion that can fight. this would have a less than three challenge rating, at the dm's discretion. after defeating the plaugue beast, the heroes are thanked and are sent to do their own thing. other challenges in alaventia to be decided later